Wind veered into the east slowly but steadily overnight. By 6am, our heading was ESE and by noon, SExS, this though we were close hauled. Worse, on that course, we were bound for a rendezvous with 48S.

Getting “trapped” too far south is a danger-to-be-avoided that was carved into my skull after the Indian Ocean knockdown last year. There I’d let headwinds push us all the way to 50S before tacking around. This meant Mo ...

Natural beauty at sea always makes me think of my mom. This rainbow came to us just before landfall in Antigua and was even more beautiful in person.

My mom would have turned 69 today had she lived. Today marks the second birthday I’ve celebrated at sea on this trans-Atlantic passage – mine, with Mia’s birthday balls dessert on Jan 25; and mom’s this morning, where on my 0200-0400 early morning watch I shared a quiet cry and contemplated the sea and the stars for two hours by myself in the cockpit, gazing out at the vastness and just ...

Rhumb line course to Cape Horn, 2,574 nm. About the distance from San Francisco to Hawaii, a route I’ve run several times. Such a comparison makes the Horn seem close. But those “to Hawaii” miles and our “to the Horn” miles are very different: the Horn is still quite far off and the intervening weather and requisite southing, a big challenge.

But it’s March, MARCH! I remember distinctly doing the around-the-bottom math just after Mo’s ...

I’ve often heard wireless headsets referred to as marriage savers but before cruising full time I didn’t realize the accuracy of the nickname. Now after several years of regular use, I wouldn’t want to cruise without them. But there are multiple brands and types of headsets, and two we’ve used extensively each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Before getting into the details, I’ll explain when the headsets became important to us. Early on, it was fairly easy to tie up at our home slip in Chicago with dock lines preset and a well-understood plan, and unfamiliar docks were ...

When I left off in the last post, the team and I on Isbjorn were preparing for the start of the RORC 600 offshore race in the Eastern Caribbean.

On the Saturday before the start of the race, the crew arrived and we went out for the first of two days of practicing. In Antigua, and really all the Eastern Caribbean Islands, the ocean is only a 10-minute boat ride away, unlike my native Chesapeake Bay where it’s 100 miles or more to find the open ocean. This was the first time I had been in the ocean since our ...

Oh the irony. I titled my last blog ‘Turn the Wind On,’ and frankly should have known better. As I write on the morning of January 31 it’s blowing dogs off chains from the NNE and ISBJORN is careening off wave tops, surfing her way west at 11 knots in the big ones. Never complain when you’re going in the right direction, and fast.

In an age when I can request a sophisticated weather model for five days into the future over a satellite phone, literally in the middle of the ocean, it’s easy to take for granted that sometimes ...

FULL WONKA! Surprise surprise…that little extra Sailing SV Delos something we teased in the 80 NORTH coffee table book is revealed today! Since we can’t ship 250 books around the world to sign them all, instead we printed 250, 6×9” postcards – using 4 different photos – that have been to James in the UK, Kiril in Vietnam and Antigua for Brian, Karin, Brady, Alex, Mia & Andy to sign!

One card will be inserted into each book before shipping! AND best yet – ONE single postcard was signed in GOLD INK, to be inserted into book no. 80 of ...

Note: The title – and gist – of this post will come back to haunt me in the next installment…

So much for the January Trades. Shortly after my birthday balls celebration the weather pattern took a turn for the weird. A not-unheard of cutoff low spun up at the tail end of a strong cold front much farther north and began meandering around to our north, just west of the Canary Islands, disrupting the classic easterly tradewind pattern we were so very much enjoying prior. By sunrise on the 25th, the wind had started veering into the SE, then ...